


The Things They Carried

by Lastactiontricia



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 12:36:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12132636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lastactiontricia/pseuds/Lastactiontricia
Summary: One shots based on the book The Things They Carried.





	1. Dean Winchester

There's always the sound of keys jingling in his pocket, the rub of metal on metal as they knocked against his knife or the change he never means to but always carries. (Probably left over from when he'd had to buy his and Sam's dinner out of machines). There's the worn leather case for his lockpick set in the front pocket of his flannel, the one broken tool from the time he'd been too rushed stealing Sam's Christmas presents. The dented zippo in his other pocket, this one has lasted much longer than any of the others, he'd found it at a truck stop and it had Led Zepplin engraved on the face, almost unreadable now. The leather wallet was new, it looked foreign tucked into the back of his frayed jeans but it was more convincing with the Fed suit. Inside was a plethora of cards, mostly scammed ones with a kalediscope of all the names he'd made for himself. Tucked into the back of the credit cards, out of sight is his original license, the center of the onion, like a reminder to not forget who he really is. There's coupons and loyalty cards aplenty, chain restaurants are their mainstay and Dean never shook the frugality of those lean years when he worried about how they'd eat. One more punch on that Bigersons card meant a free meal and dessert half price. There's plenty of business cards as well, organized by association ruthlessly to make the act of pulling it out effortless. Back behind the crumpled bills is a picture of him and Sam's, both awkward angles and swagger from before Sam left for Stanford. Behind that is John and Mary, the faded colors lending it a dream like perfection it had never had in real life. At the small of his back there's a holster for the Colt 1911 with Pearl grips that John thought were too flashy, but Dean loved and bought anyway. It's warm from his skin and he doesn't even notice the weight anymore, it's just there like a limb. In his boot there's another knife, as well as some extra cord tucked into his laces. Occasionally there's bullets or an extra bottle opener snuck into his back pocket, but not so much any more. Sometimes there's instant coffee instead, for emergencies when whatever backwater town they were in didn't have coffee with the machine, or candy wrappers he never managed to fully hide from Sam. And receipts, sometimes all the remained from them passing thru were the receipts, this small record of place and time that Dean sometimes kept, smoothing them out like proof. I was here. I made a difference. Maybe you can't tell that from the 2 bottles of water, a six pack, and jerky, but Dean knows that the small purchase was a rugaru in Des Moines and that salad soup combo and bacon cheeseburger with fries in Madionsville was a vampire nest they cleared out. He holds onto them for awhile and then lets them go. Sometimes memory is enough.


	2. Sam Winchester

Sam always had rubber bands, they combated with the lint in his pockets and circled his wrist from time to time. After chasing paperwork enough, he'd started banding together their research to make his life easier. There was a few wrapped around the hinge side of his knife(it was about an inch bigger than Deans on purpose.) A sharpening stone took up residence in his pocket next to the knife, Sam liked to sharpen the blade in idle moments, so he always had it handy. Where Dean was ceaselessly leaving his phone places, Sam's was always in his left shirt pocket riding along with a pen or two, emblazoned with various motel logos, that always seemed to run out of ink right before he used them. There was always a small notebook as well, tucked wherever it was convenient, something Sam had picked up after realizing how useful it was when he carried one with the fed suit, which was a leather bound official looking thing that stayed with the suit. The regular notepads were the dollar store variety, the metal spiral on the top always seemed to be catching on a pocket and unraveling. There was always an extra knife stashed somewhere on his body, unlike Dean he moved where he kept it as to not be predictable. Ruby had taught him that. His wallet was the twin to Deans, new and still hadn't lost the sheen of new leather. Inside there was the usual organization of credit cards and phony business cards, he'd kept a few of the ridiculous ones Dean had made him like Bikini Inspector tucked away behind the others. Tucked into one of the slots in the wallet, hardly ever disturbed, was a picture of a smiling Jess still in its plastic shield from a previous wallet. Sam didn't smooth his fingers over her face anymore, it was getting harder to believe he'd ever been that young, when he saw her face it was hard to remember the boy he'd been. Next to the picture, shoved haphazardly in the same slot, was the ticket stub to Supernatural the Musical, which Sam secretly enjoyed. Sam had a good luck charm, he kept it on him always, traveling from pocket to coat to jeans. It was a perfectly smooth piece of smoky quartz, taken from Samuel Colt's home, a real living piece of history. Sam imagined he'd worn it smooth by repeatedly worrying his fingers over the surface, same as Sam when he was mulling something over. One thing he and Dean both carried, each thinking it was a secret, was books. Not the lore books they drug around, but paperbacks tucked into pockets and duffels, curled up to fit into the nooks of their lives. When Sam was alone, he'd unfurl his Steinbeck or Fitzgerald and lose a few hours in someone else problems, in someone else's life. 


	3. Mary Winchester

Unlike the rest of us, Mary hadn't had time to accumulate small artifacts of her life. The past was dead, another crossed out name on her paper from her visit to Lawrence. All the things like pictures and license, gone, ash in a long forgotten fire. Everything she carried was new, the very newness offended her sometimes, this ceaseless reminder that she didn't belong. One thing she'd lifted (because it still felt like stealing) was a medal from John's journal. She remembered when he'd gotten it, it was the only thing left from her past that she could hold on to; its brass face chipped and worn down to a nickel color already, before her worrying over it, rubbing it like Aladdin's lamp like it could bring back the dead. She'd still wake up in the morning like this was a nightmare, still grabbing at he empty side of the bed for a John that would never come home. She still wore his ring on a necklace, hunting didn't lend itself to rings, and the girl who'd said yes to that ring, well, that girl was gone. Buried. Death had already parted them. She brought Johns journal everywhere, even scribbled notes in the back from her trip to Lawrence, that empty list of names and places time hadn't been any kinder to. Her wallet was parse, the fake ID's Sam made her, cash(she'd never get used to credit cards or digital money). She'd printed out her marriage certificate and tucked it behind the cash, already frayed along the folds from being smoothed out and tucked away too much. She had knives tucked everywhere, brass, steel, silver; a kaleidoscope of keen edges. There was a phone she had mostly managed but was still struggling to understand, and a set of car keys that didn't look like keys anymore, Sam told her it was a chip and she'd nodded like she understood. One thing she hadn't let go of was maps, paper routes and tangible lines , all laid out, absolute. It reminded her of road trips with John, picking out a scenic route in the Impala. Maps still made sense, Dean understood, he'd silently find her different versions or vintage ones, laying the old over the new like that would help her navigate this new territory, this undiscovered country where shed been gone for thirty years. Where her children were grown, her own age; a strange crew of scarred lonely men of a type she thought she'd left behind in her parents living room, bleeding out her new life.


	4. Castiel

Castiel had a problem with object permanence. He never held onto things because he didn't understand Ownership the same way the Winchesters, or any other human, did. Everything was disposable, everything but his blade. But the longer he stayed on Earth, the more things seemed to pile up. The more he felt when things were lost. He starts to understand the deliciousness of ownership. There's a picture of him and Claire in his wallet, taken without either of them knowing, slipped into the wallet Dean had purchased for him without a word. The clothes they procure for him to lounge in, so soft and human-He puts on the angel socks and grey pants that Sam told him were for night time, for ease, puzzles over the need to label socks with his species. Spends his night hours reading every volume in the bunker. He keeps some in his room, to because he won't remember- Castiel doesn't forget things, but because he likes the illustrations. Thinks about the way these things will keep his family alive to him long after they're gone. He wonders how he will deal with that knowledge once he runs out of lore to read, how the night will inch along with agonizing slowness ticking away moments of their lives that he cant spend with them. Too short already and half that time they're unconscious, he's so puzzled by his fathers logic that it almost enrages him. Theres his keychain with "Castiel-Angel of Thursday" etched into it with a poor rendering that Dean bought him as a joke.


End file.
